Posts
8
Joined
3/24/2023
Location
Galesburg, IL
US
Hi All! Long time MX rider & user of the MX forum....first time post here on the MTB forum.
Fell in love with biking last year when my coworkers took me out and I was lucky enough to ride a few of their "old" bikes for most of the year.
I'm finally ready to pull the trigger on a new bike purchase and really have my eye on the Intense 951 XC as it seems to be a good starting point for the type of riding I do here in my area.
https://intense951.com/collections/frontpage/products/951-series-xc
Can anyone provide any feedback on this bike? Any major pros/cons or anything that you thing needs upgraded right off the bat?
Loved the intense spider I rode. Pretty sure this is the same bike just in their dtc line. Tempted to get one myself with that 1000 off any bike sale
Unfortunately the pulp1k discount code does not apply to the Series 951 bikes.
Great bike, good components. Most of the cost-saving stuff is still quite usable and you can upgrade as you progress. I say get it!
Update: went ahead and placed my order yesterday, can’t wait for it to arrive!
Now the real fun starts with accessories and hop up parts 🤣
Any recommendations for flat pedals under $100?
Assuming I will go with the tubeless setup, what happens when I get a flat? Do I need to keep extra sealant on hand?
Congrats! Not too sure about the price, but DMR, Canfield and Hope make good stuff. A few of my pals have had good luck with the resin One Up and Race Face pedals and those are under $100. As for fixing a flat, you’ll want to carry a spare tube (you can strap it to the frame with a ski strap or some aftermarket solution), means to inflate the tube, and/or plug kit. A small, foldable Allen wrench set isn’t a bad idea, either. Load up with some snacks and water and you’re good to go. If you find yourself with a bunch of flats, you might consider upgrading to a stronger tire casing. It adds weight, but unless you’re trying for the top step on the podium at the local XC race, those extra grams are completely worth it. Above all else, have fun!
Re: Sealant.
Neither myself nor the guys I ride with carry sealant. I’ll slap a tube in, finish the ride, and then worry about plugging it and adding more sealant (or ordering a new tire) once I’ve had a beer. Many enduro racers carry plug kits, and it’s not hard to understand why: a successful plug saves the tire and allows for the benefits of a tubeless tire for the rest of the race. For the rest of us, that might not be necessary just to get back to the car. Different strokes and all that.
Depends. If your tire is still on the rim a plug and a pump will do the trick.
But if you unseat the tire well it’s best to have a spare tube in that case.
Crankbrothers Stamp 1 pedals are around $50.
You'll get far fewer flats with tubeless than with tubes. The sealant fixes them as they occur and you barely even lose air pressure. I keep some extra on hand to top off every 6 months or so, and I also change it out when I swap tires.
After ordering the bike a few weeks ago, finally found a couple evenings to get it put together!
I ended up ordering an "open box" model, which was $300 off MSRP, and everything was in perfect condition when it arrived.
Assembly was pretty straight forward, as it was mostly just bolting on the wheels, bars, attaching the derailleur, and adjusting controls. Fit and finish on everything was really nice.
Really like the Intense tool kit that came with it as well! Although I already have quite the assortment of tools from wrenching on motorcycles for many years, it was just really nice to have this nice little sano kit that I can keep dedicated to bike service.
Haven't had a chance to take it out on the trails yet, but did catch some nice weather and put a few miles on it around town. I noticed the SRAM GX wasn't shifting as cleanly as I had hoped for, but after getting some YouTube crash courses in tuning the derailleur, I was able to notice a big improvement and it's shifting very nicely now. This might be my only minor complaint with the whole process of buying and setting up, as i'm sure a LBS would have had the shift tuning ironed out before it even left the shop. Luckily i'm pretty mechanically inclined and was able to figure it out pretty easily, but others might need to have a quick tune up done it from their LBS to optimize everything.
Hoping to get out on the trails in the upcoming days, will report back more later!
Nice bike. I like the little red hits.
I worked for a while at Art's Cycles back before they were locally owned and were part of the Sports Warehouse corp. They bought out Intense's entire year end stock of hundreds of bikes and it was my job to unbox, build up, tune and test ride, then clean, break down and pack for shipping all those bikes. I think five was my most productive day. A bike can be perfectly tuned before packaging, But it will seldom be perfect on arrival. Knowledge of those tiny little screws is key.
My apologies to anyone who received one of my bikes and were unhappy.
Thanks! I was questioning if the bright red was going to be too much, but I think it ended up playing very well with the red bits on the wheels and pops very nicely against the blue frame. I went with OneUp for both the flats and grips to make sure the color hue was the same between both.
5 in a day is pretty impressive! What kind of adjustments did you seem to have to make the most often?
I think I had about 8 hours total in the build, but i'm very new to all this and really took my time going through all the videos and literature for everything. I'll also admit that I somehow got the chain routing messed up which caused the chain to tangle and kink pretty badly. I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to untangle it
. Eventually got frustrated and just popped the masterlink off and then put it back on after the rear wheel was installed.
Some of them were Complete builds, meaning the frame in one box and the components in another. So, all the adjustments. But most were standard one box builds with primarily derailleur adjustments and proper torques.
Yetis come as frame and parts too. So your LBS does a complete pro build on every one.
I really like the blue more than the gray on these, and the red bits really look nice. Enjoy!
I'm really happy with my last minute decision change to the blue frame! It looks great in the sunlight. The stock pictures on Intenses' website don't do it justice!
Great looking bike. It looks like it would be a lot of fun around here. Are there trails around Galesburg or do you ride in the Peoria area?
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